How does your team scout?

[MasterRobot]

For our team, team 2438, we have tried and implemented many systems for scouting over the last few years.

A year or two ago, we started off with a beautiful access database. On the first day, some people would go around and take pictures of each robot to add to the database, then robots were given values based on their performance in categories such as driver skill, offense, or defense. This did not work. I am not how teams use the numbers if they do it this way, but for us, we found the number system impossible to read and understand. Someone could if they wanted too, but the team didn't want to do that, drivers wanted qualitative things, and the captains only wanted a list.

This year we focused on those two goals in creating a scouting database. We use the first day, and part of the second day to take qualitative data, and strategy data on all the teams. We used an html based database with a person who ran from the pit to the arena updating the pit scouting computer with data from the matches. For ranking, we ranked every robot on a 1-6 scale. 1 being the best robot in the match, 6 being the worst. That with the data on the zone taken into consideration, yielded a list of the best performing robots per zone.

We so far like this system because it is simple and friendly to everyone. Plus, this can be used with anywhere from 2 to 10+ scouts working or ranking. The drivers get the strategy and qualitative stuff they want (no confusing "5" for speed numbers) plus we get a list of the top 24 robots for picking. For us, scouting needs to be simple to work and any scouting system, computerized or on paper should be tailored to what the team needs and wants in order to succeed.